


Isn't Someone Missing?

by kyanve



Category: Suikoden III
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What choices led to abandoning his family and taking on a different life on the other side of the battlefield?</p><p>(Another of the older ones transferred over.  It was supposed to be short!  A single chapter! A vignette scene!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forgive Me

"There's nothing more I can do; I've never seen anything like this, and can't even begin to guess how to treat the symptoms, much less the illness itself. I'm sorry." The doctor was watching the floor sideways, having a hard time looking straight at Wyatt, sitting next to his wife's bedside holding her limp hand.

"It's alright. I understand. Thank you for all of your help." The words came out flat, dead and futile; his attention was entirely on Anna's sleeping face, the light hair that fell in a halo around her head on the pillow, the occasional twitch or murmur that betrayed some dream in her coma. Of course the doctor couldn't identify the illness; it wasn't a disease but a poison, a poison Wyatt only recognized by dim chance from decades ago.

"I'll stay in the household for observation, and in case some divine revelation strikes, but I can't lie and tell you there's any hope; the most we can do is try to keep her as comfortable as possible and be there if she wakes up before the end."

Wyatt nodded numbly, gently rubbing the palm of her hand with one thumb; there was no response, not even a reflex in her hand to close. The last six years with her seemed to eclipse all the rest of his almost seventy; he'd always steeled himself for the day that time would catch up to her and his eternity would go on, but he'd never dreamed it would be this soon. Forty years since they'd fought Harmonia, another ten good years on the treaty, and already they were breaking it - and not even by striking at him directly, but at someone innocent of the fight, unaware of the reason why. Not even the courtesy to put a bullet in his back in a dark alleyway and leave his family out of it. "Anna, I'm sorry..."

The doctor laid a consoling hand on his shoulder. "You did all you could; it's not your fault."

He nodded dumbly. He hadn't done all he could - if he'd just been thinking, paying attention that they were still after him, maybe he could've caught the assassin, maybe he could've forced an antidote out of them, done something to keep them away from her. Maybe she wouldn't have had to suffer like this for what he'd done so long ago.

The door creaked open; Wyatt and the doctor looked up, then had to scan down the door to a little figure in a lacy grey dress, nibbling at her own hand, looking up at them with blue eyes pleading for an answer.

"It's OK Chris; your mother's going to be alright. She's just sick and needs to rest. Go back to bed now, okay sweetie?" He gave her the kind of pained smile that always accompanied the nice parental lies told to spare a child. Chris lowered her head, looking up at him over her hands almost disbelieving, then padded out, letting the door shut behind her.

"Sir Wyatt? I'll be in my room if you need anything else tonight." The doctor left as quietly as a ghost, gently closing the door behind him, leaving him alone with Anna. He held her hand up to his face, waiting; he didn't have much hope that she'd wake up, but he didn't want to move from her side, just in case, even as he caught himself nodding off for a few brief seconds; he shook it off, straightened in the chair, and remained, holding her hand.

He woke up with a start, slumped over the side of the bed; he hadn't even realized when he'd fallen asleep. His hand was still wrapped around Anna's, and it was still dark outside, the stars clear and bright. It must've only been a few hours, at most, but even those few hours were more than he wanted to lose - someone with forever praying for time to stop. He resumed his silent vigil; she seemed almost too still….

She wasn't breathing. He held a hand on her chest, waiting for some sign of movement, checked her pulse in her wrist, held a hand to her neck looking for some flutter of a heartbeat - nothing.

Part of him broke, quietly, as he stood up and numbly walked out to get the doctor down the hall; there wasn't anything the doctor could do, it was nothing more than a formality. She was gone.

\---------------------------------

_Please please forgive me_

_But I won't be home again_

_Maybe someday you'll look up_

_And barely conscious you'll say to noone_

_Isn't something missing?_

It was only an hour or two to sunrise when he left the room, leaving the doctor to contact the undertaker and arrange for her grave. Walking through the empty hall in the dark, he found himself stopping at Chris's door, gently turning the handle so as not to wake the child, closing it all but a crack behind him.

Chris was sound asleep, curled up in the blankets of her bed, the window shuttered and draped over, a picture of peace and calm. This was his family now; his daughter was all he had left, more valuable than his own life.

And as long as he was there, as long as they were after him, she'd be a target; he couldn't protect Anna, how could he hope to keep them from Chris? He was a knight, a warrior, he met his enemies on the battlefield with drawn swords; he didn't know the first thing about fighting shadows that came in the night, or dressed as a servant, bearing poison and shots in the dark. All he had to do was turn his back once and she'd be gone; he couldn't be there for her constantly.

Tomorrow the Knights were leaving for Grasslands. Everyone would probably expect him to request leave for the funeral; he'd be faced with condolences from every bureaucrat from here to Tinto, and the assassins would still be there.

As long as he lived….

He knelt down by Chris's bed, running a hand through her silver hair; she stirred slightly, but didn't wake. "Forgive me, Chris…I can't be there for you…" Tomorrow the Knights would leave for the Grasslands; he was going with them, and one way or another, he wasn't coming back. Once he had cut all ties to Zexen, alive or dead, the Guild wouldn't have any reason to waste resources harming Chris. "I'm sure you'll grow up to be a fine knight, one that would've made your mother proud. I'm sorry, but I have to leave you alone; the servants will take care of you, and I'm sure the other Knights will see to it you're safe. I'm sorry." He stood up and walked out of the room, taking one last look at his daughter asleep before closing her door and going to prepare.


	2. I'm the Sacrifice

_You won't cry for my absence I know_

_You forgot me long ago_

_Am I that unimportant?_

_Am I so insignificant?_

_Isn't someone missing me?_

"So that's Karaya village?" It was just before sunrise on the Grasslands, dew forming thick on the plains grasses and the stone markers that ringed the larger structure that most took for a caern or mausoleum. From the hill, it was possible to see most of the Plain of Amur, with the faint blue shimmer of the lake Duck Village was built on to the north, a dark green line further past marking the Kaput Forest, and a tree-dotted sea of green stretching out toward the mountains that formed the border between Grasslands and Harmonia. Karaya itself formed a colored spiral in the endless fields, with the small camps of hunters and warriors scattered around it. Wyatt was standing next to one of the stone markers, Galahad on the other side; there was no moss on the gravestone, sign that it was cared for, although some grew on the central stone building. Every one of the triangular stones covering the hillside marked a fallen Karayan warrior.

"Yessir; this is closer than we've ever gotten. The feint to the south drew them away enough that if we're lucky, we might be able to take the village itself today and force a surrender. The war might be over." Wyatt only nodded thoughtfully, staring off at the fields, until he realized Galahad was watching him with a distinctly bewildered expression. "Sir? Are you alright?"

"Eh? Fine, of course." He snapped out of the reverie, trying to regain his old composure, to find that old bravado he'd always kept.

"I'm sorry."

"What do you have to apologize for?"

"For your wife…for dragging you out here so soon after…." The younger knight looked away. "Sorry."

"It's quite alright; she wouldn't have wanted me to abandon all of you out here at a time like this, and I still have Chris to protect - I can't assure her safety if I quit the field now." Wyatt stretched and walked over to the old monolith, one hand on the stone.

"Sir? I just wanted to tell you, that you've been an inspiration to us all, and if there's anything you need, here or back in Vinay del Zexay, it'd be an honor to help you, if I can at all."

If only Galahad knew; it felt wrong to deceive his second in command like this, when he had no intention of returning. "If anything happens to me - would you see to it that Chris is looked after? She's a strong girl, but I don't want to see her left alone, and….she wants to be a knight, and I think she'd be able to do it, if she's just given a chance to start training."

"Sir?"

He looked back at his bewildered lieutenant. "Is something wrong?"

"Women…don't become knights."

"Really…" A wry grin cracked his face. "How many Grasslander women have we seen on the battlefield, Galahad?"

"Quite a few, sir." Galahad had taken on a blank cast, trying to find the point.

"And most of them have lived up to the task, right? Who's to say a Zexen girl can't be every bit as strong as that?"

"I'll - see what I can do, but it really shouldn't be necessary; we're this close to victory, and in another week we'll probably be back in Vinay del Zexay and you can see to her training yourself." He was thrown off, worried, to say the least; the Captain had never even brought up a glimmer of his own mortality. "We should be going back; there's preparations to make, and we don't want to make anyone worry."

"You go on ahead; I'll be right behind you in a minute."

Galahad nodded and walked off, slowly, watching Wyatt stare at the monolith; untethering his horse, he rode off, glancing back now and then.

How many people realized what the monolith was? The doorway to the shrine of the True Water Rune; it had been decades since Wyatt had stood here by this stone, emerging after sealing the Rune. Immortal, still, but seemingly as normal as anyone else; he had to wonder if he hadn't sealed the Rune, if he'd have been able to use it to save Anna. He'd had unparalleled magic for healing and purifying when he'd carried it openly…but if he hadn't sealed it, he would've been easier to track, and they would've caught up much sooner. He would've lost Anna either way.

They were going to try to take Karaya; almost forty years ago he'd fought alongside Karayans and Grasslanders. Almost forty years ago there'd been one night around a campfire, promises made to remember. Nothing had come of anything so far; the Firebringers had scattered, hidden sparks waiting for a battle that might never come. If Anna's assassination was any sign, the Howling Voice Guild was already at work putting the sparks out before they could rise again.

Alex, if he was still alive, was probably back at Chisha with Sana; little ever came to the mountain village, protected by the pass and a lack of anything for a raiding army to take. After all Alex had been through, Wyatt couldn't bring himself to consider going there, assassins in tow, and shattering the peace and happiness Alex had fought so hard for; much less possibly inflicting on Alex and Sana the kind of pain he'd found. Alex had given up the wars and strife when he'd given up the Fire Rune, seeking to forget; Wyatt wouldn't remind him. Geddoe had wandered off to find somewhere to disappear; the inscrutable old warrior could be anywhere, and probably wasn't far from conflict. Wyatt didn't think Geddoe would forget the promise, but he kept busy; it was possible for Geddoe to be distracted, embroiled in other problems, perhaps even to the point that he might not be able to make it back if the renewed Harmonian invasion Alex had feared happened. Wyatt had heard there was some kind of disturbance beginning in Dunan, but he could hardly find a new life by tracking strife and battles hoping to find a one-eyed ghost.

If he cut ties to Zexen and let the name of Wyatt Lightfellow die, he'd destroy the one way left for them to find him; he'd have to find some way of his own to keep track of events in case the promise was ever invoked. Until then, he would fade into memory, a half-remembered story that followed at the Flame Champion's heels in a war few people remembered.

\-------------------------------------------

_Even though I'm the sacrifice_

_You won't try for me, not now_

_Though I died to know you love me_

_I'm all alone_

_Isn't someone missing me?_

It was late afternoon; they'd made it most of the way down the hills when they realized the main Karayan force had figured out the feint and turned around. The Grasslanders moved fast, and were on them before they'd even properly formed the lines to defend. It had been a bloody battle so far; they were taking heavy losses, being pushed back, but giving almost as good as they got.

It came down to Wyatt, Galahad, and a unit of cavalry holding a bottleneck in the dusty, grass-lined road, playing rearguard as long as they could to buy time.

There was a lull of a few minutes in the assault, then arrows raked them from either side; the Karayan archers must've gotten up the dropoff to flank them. Some of the cavalry went down, shot off their horses, some of the horses buckled, there was a moment of chaos; Wyatt's shoulder was clipped, and his horse went down with a scream, arrows in its legs and neck.

Galahad was trying to regain order as he struggled to his feet, yelling an order to retreat. three of the men bolted just at that, the rest that were still mounted or standing rallied to him and Galahad, who'd ridden over to him.

"Sir! Take my horse!" Galahad tried to dismount; Wyatt grabbed his leg, holding it in the stirrup.

"Take the men and go, lead them out of here - anyone who can't make it, stay here with me and go down fighting!"

"But sir-"

"Take care of Chris!", Wyatt snapped, and smacked the horse with the flat of his blade, setting it dancing forward; Galahad gave him a last, helpless look, then rode off, leading all but one of the mounted soldiers and a few on foot.

It was as if the spirits knew what he wanted.

Some of the men who'd stayed were wounded; a couple he'd taken for dead were straggling tto their feet, dragging weapons out of the dirt. Others were unscathed, facing the impending Karayan charge with the same grim resolve as the dying.

"Let's make this sacrifice mean something!" He raised his blade, and the Karayan attack hit.

They did damage, to be sure; he saw some of the Karayan warriors go down, and it seemed that even as they were hopelessly overwhelmed they were taking three Karayans for each of them that fell. Wyatt was wounded, bloodied, and shrugging it off; soon he was the only Zexen left in the bottleneck. Fletchings and broken off shafts marked about every crack in his armor, mirror-bright turned red; he should already be dead, the True Rune and blank resolve keeping him standing, the world dimmed to a bloody haze.

There was a horn, then there wasn't a next attack to parry, another target to strike; he stood shakily in the middle of the Karayan army, with a ring of dead warriors around him, blinking blood and sweat out of his eyes. It was bad enough on one eye for him to wonder briefly if he'd lost it, a wound to match Geddoe's, bad enough to narrow the world to a blurry, blotchy mist. Now that the fight had stopped, the adrenaline that had been holding him up bled away, and he fell to his knees in the middle of the ring, coughing up blood. He was still clutching his sword in one hand, and none of the Karayans dared to approach.

Hooves approached and stopped, and through the red blotches of blur he made out the hooves and ankles of a Grasslander riding beast, its rider dismounting. Painfully, he scanned up to see who was now standing in front of him. It was a Karayan, of course, a man looking down at him in a sort of awed bewilderment; he could fuzzily make out extra bands of colors on the bracelets, a mace in one hand, something on the necklace glinting. He had to struggle to remember what it all meant, then realized he was at the feet of the Karayan Chief.

"You're the Zexen Captain - the leader of their army." Wyatt wasn't sure if his nod was readable through the shaking of the coughing he was barely suppressing, or the weaving of his own loss of balance and strength. "You would fight to your death to allow your men to escape?" The Chief's voice was quiet, filled with hushed respect.

Wyatt bowed his head, black spots starting to creep in among the red blurs, there was blood rising in the back of his throat again. He wasn't a hero; he was just trying to commit suicide with some dignity.

"Before you die, I wish to know your name."

"Wyatt...Wyatt Lightfellow." He choked the words out, surprised he even found a voice, and waited. The blow came, sending everything black.

\-------------------------------------------

He woke up; that itself was surprising. What wasn't outright wounded was sore to the point of torment. Both eyes opened; his left eye was still present, if still blurred. The Karayan chief was on a stool beside the hammock Wyatt was lying in, covered in bandages, in a simple Karayan tent.

Wyatt closed his eyes, finding his voice again. "Why..." He swallowed, his voice scratched and hoarse. "Why did you spare me?"

The Chief folded his hands, leaning on them. "When I was a child, my parents and grandparents told me tales of the Firebringers, and of the heroes they fought along side. One of the Flame Champion's most trusted friends was a warrior named Wyatt Lightfellow. They told me, that the old heroes had gone to find their own lives, and to wait for the day in which they would be needed again. I would wonder, after the stand you made for your troops, if you were that Wyatt Lightfellow?"

A hero. Again, he was being treated as a hero. "Wyatt Lightfellow...was a man, who took pity on a group of prisoners and helped them escape. Was...someone who'd come into power quite accidentally, who tried to live honestly with himself, and wanted nothing more at the end of a long and bloody war than to find someplace quiet and comfortable to live while he could. Had a family, like any other man, and..." He swallowed hard. "Lost his wife to old ghosts, ghosts he could neither stop nor fight, who had a little daughter that looked up to him and sought to follow in his footsteps as a knight, that would suffer for his past as long as he lived, but had too much stubborn pride to walk out to his enemies and take her place, who rode out hoping for nothing more than a chance to die with some honor left." He caught the Chief's eyes with a dim, pleading look. "Wyatt Lightfellow has lived long enough, and came here to die."

The Chief nodded solemnly and stood, drawing the dagger at his side; Wyatt closed his eyes. The blade came down - through the line of rope beside his head; the Chief left it hanging in the hammock-net, standing over him. "Then Wyatt Lightfellow died on the battlefield, and the man I had brought back to our camp was a Karayan warrior like any other. I would hope, that you could live to see a certain little girl grown to a proud warrior like her father." He retrieved his dagger and bowed slightly to Wyatt.

Wyatt broke into choked, sobbing laughter, trailing off in tears as the pain in his ribs renewed and wounds threatened to reopen. "Thank you..."

"You'll need a Karayan name, of course...you were the Keeper of Water, yes? The shrine has been the secret of the Chiefs, kept in your faith." Wyatt listened in silence, with just a slight nod of acknowledgement, as the Chief stood in deep thought. "Jimba Cheeva...it means river of resurrection." He turned for the tent flap. "The healers will return soon; I will swear the warriors to this."

"Jimba Cheeva." Wyatt murmered, nodding at the new name, a sign to the spirits from the Karayan Chief.


	3. If I Sleep to Dream of You

_Please please forgive me_

_But I won't be home again_

_I know what you do to yourself_

_I breathe deep and cry out_

_Isn't something missing?_

He had his own home, on the outskirts of Karaya; his new life was far quieter, lending help around the village and hunting interspersed with taking care of some of the children who were wholly or partially orphaned. Lucia turned to him for council as her father had years ago, and more than one of the Karayan families had adopted him as one of their own.

He lived alone; every so often some of the Karayan girls would take to him, twittering in the background when he was outside, then fall away as he politely, blithely ignored their interest. He wasn't interested anymore, even though sometimes the small wooden house grew almost too quiet; his neighbors apologized constantly for the noise of livestock, for warriors and hunters coming and going at all hours, but he appreciated the background chatter that kept him grounded in the present, in Karaya. When he wasn't outside, he worked at cleaning and dyeing hides, sewing from bolts of cloth he'd trade to the weavers for, the newfound domestic streak forever amusing the village; Jimba Cheeva, warrior, doing menial hand-work normally taken up by civilians.

He heard Luce shouting outside, but couldn't make out what she was yelling; it was likely one or more of the kids getting into trouble again. The yelling came closer, then passed by, and he noticed a draft from the disturbed weaving draped over the window, a "shh!" and stifled laughter from behind the water-jars. Setting down the stitching on the border he'd been working on, he leaned over toward the water jars.

"And what have you been up to now, hmm?"

Three heads and a blue-eyed tuft of white feathers popped up, Hugo putting a finger to his lips. "Shhh! We're not here!" Lulu was still fighting to stifle laughter, and Aila reached around Hugo's shoulder to cuff him for it, Fubar clicking quietly watching the window they'd come in. They all had fruit stains on their faces and hands, crumbs on their clothes, right down to purple smudges on Fubar's beak and feathers.

"Getting into Luce's baking while it cools?" The children squeaked and ducked back behind the water-jars; he glanced sidelong at the door flap and the window, listening to be sure Luce was out of range, then whispered to the jars. "Next time, do it while you're heading out of the village to fetch water, and don't eat it until you're at the river - that way, you can clean up so you won't get caught, and you won't be there when she notices it's gone."

There were squeals of laughter, then all four of them scrambled around the water jars to sit at his feet, Fubar trying to go straight over the jars, missing one rim, and dunking his face and talons in, squalling at the wet while Hugo tugged him out. Aila stuck to the wall, tripping over his old breastplate with a loud metal clang. "Stupid rusty piece of junk!", she snarled, aiming a kick back at it as she untangled from it, and he briefly cringed; he'd worn that with pride once.

"Jimba?" Lulu was tugging on his pant leg; Fubar was shaking the water out of his frizzy mane, drenching Hugo in the process. "Where'd you get that?" Still tugging, he was pointing at the breastplate with one hand.

"Well now, that's a long story..." He start at the old armor pensively, hoping the words "long story" would send them elsewhere; instead, he found three children and a gryphlet sitting in a semicircle at his feet, waiting expectantly.

Mercifully, there was a harsh knock on the doorframe, and Luce calling "Jimba?!" He waved at the kids to keep quiet, and pulled the door panel aside just enough to see out, leaning in the doorframe with Luce and Joe outside. Luce had her arms crossed, glowing, tapping one foot, while Joe stood resignedly behind her, cigar hanging loose, recruited.

"Have you seen the kids?" When she spoke with that glower, it was hard not to guess which kids she was referring to, and he started grinning in spite of himself.

"No, I'm afraid not; haven't seen'em around here at all. I was just working on my sewing."

There was another clatter of the breastplate, an "Eep!" from Aila, two "Shhhh!"'s and a gryphlet-hiss. Luce fixed him with her fiercest glare.

"Scatter, plan B!", he yelled, running past Luce for the edge of town; Lulu and Aila tumbled out the side window they'd come in, racing two separate directions, Hugo and Fubar out the other window, Hugo half-riding and half being drug along by the gryphlet. Luce was paralyzed trying to decide who to chase, and settled for running to the gates of town, waving a fist in the air while Joe marched placidly behind - "Jimba Cheeva, what are you teaching those children?!", she screamed after him.

By the time he reached the bottom of the cairn hill, he was winded; he stopped by one of the rock outcroppings on the southern slope, leaning on the grey stone panting. He was getting soft, if he couldn't make this run without stopping anymore. He had to take to a slower walk that took almost half an hour to scale the hill; the kids had probably beaten him.

He found the four of them all sitting around one of the cairn rocks a few hundred yards from the Water Shrine monolith, watching him climb with the smug joy of kids that'd managed to beat out their elders. He waved a finger at them, warning, "Don't get too cocky, you'll be old and decrepit like me one day."

"Yeah right, you've always been here!", Aila retorted. "You're probably gonna live forever."

He had to give a wry laugh at that; she probably didn't know how accurate her joke was.

"So how'd you get that Zexen armor?", Hugo asked, sitting cross-legged on top of the cairn. Fubar was stretched out at the base of it.

He wasn't going to stand here catching his breath and talk, that was for sure. He held up a hand for pause, found another cairn near them, apologized to it, and sat down. "That's an old, old story...a couple years older than Hugo, in fact." Three giggles at his offhand joke. "There was a Zexen camp of troops right here on this hill, where we're sitting now; the command tent was up that way, just over the crest of the hill, where they could see all the plains without being seen themselves, until they moved. They'd sent a few riders south, over that way, to attract attention - ", He pointed to the south, past Karaya village, where the feint had occurred, "And were going to sweep down and take the village from here, just like that." He lined out the path they'd almost taken down the hill with both hands, the children listening raptly. "Now, the old Chief was a smart fellow, and he caught on to the Zexen's tricks, and brought the warriors back north; the cut around the Zexens there and there-" just south of Duck Village and off the other side of the road, where they'd been flanked - "caught them completely by surprise, drove them back as quick as they'd come, until they hit that little set of cliffs where the road's worn down into the rock there. The Zexen captain himself had taken a few men to hold that road until the rest of the Zexen army had retreated, knowing they had no chance of getting out alive. They fought until they were overwhelmed, dead to a man; the Zexen captain was the last to fall, and that armor belonged to him." Part of him remembered the dust, the hot sun, the sting of his wounds through the evening cool, even as distant as it seemed to speak of it as someone else.

"You defeated the Zexen Captain?", Aila whispered.

"I struck the final blow, but I don't think any one of us can take credit for that. Many Karayans fell in that battle." A ring of bodies around him; he half wondered if any of the warriors he'd killed that day had been related to one of the kids hanging on his every word now. "I only barely walked away from that battle myself; I was in the healer's tents for weeks." The plains never changed; the view from this hill was the same as it'd been back then. "They've never come that close to Karaya since."

"So you were one of the warriors that beat them off?", Lulu said, wide-eyed.

"Wow...you're a hero, Jimba!" He had to hide the wince at Hugo's words. They had no idea which side he'd fought on there, or why he was out there; he was one of the 'Zexen Ironheads' that'd almost taken Karaya that day, and Lucia had respected his choice that while he'd fight alongside the Karayan warriors, he never fought against the Zexen army he'd once led. It went beyond a matter of simple principle; he had no doubts Chris would fight hard to train through even basic prejudices and the roughest masters, and he didn't want to be put in the position of facing his own unknowing daughter on the battlefield one day.

"Jimba? Are you alright?" Hugo snapped him back to reality.

"I'm fine...just...thinking."

"Bout what?" Aila this time; the three of them sometimes seemed to share one mind between them.

"That Zexen captain...he must've had a home and a family...someday, if there's ever peace between Grasslands and Zexen, I'd like to send his things back to his family, and let them know how he died - that he fought to the death so that his men could escape." The old half-lie, to lay the memory of Wyatt Lightfellow to rest so that it would not be pursued.

The children were fidgeting, and even Fubar looked up to them with a worried trill; his brooding was starting to rub off on them.

"Come on, I'll show you something." He jumped to his feet, waving toward the monolith. "You can see all of the Grasslands from this hill, and if you can just - sorry -" He put one foot on the nearest cairn, to where he could catch the lowest overhang of the monolith's roof, pulling himself up awkwardly. "Just get up here...." He gasped, then turned around and held a hand down for the first of them.

A pair of talons wrapped around his bracers, and he found himself pulling up a gryphlet that responded to his look of chagrin with an innocent, "Kueee?", before catching the roof himself and scrabbling up to perch at the highest point. Lulu came next, slipping his grip on Jimba's wrist; Jimba caught the back of his shirt with his other hand, pulling him the rest of the way up. Aila used his wrist as a ladder almost, hopping up easily to sit next to Fubar on the edge, then Hugo came last, letting Jimba pull him most of the way up.

He stood and pointed west. "You can see all the way to Brass Castle - see that brown spot sticking up out of the woods thatway?" The castle keep stood out against the darker green of the ravine it was built over. The kids scrambled over each other to stand as close to him as possible.

"Is that really built out of stone? It's so big!", Hugo marveled.

"They build just about all the buildings in Zexen from stone, sometimes bits of wood or masonry - that's like the plaster the healers buy, only tougher."

"They build out of healer's plaster?" Aila gave him a dubious look, not buying it.

"Go see for yourself some day; honest truth." The children fell quiet, each squinting to try and make out more bits of the castle on the edge of the Grasslands. It didn't seem so long ago anymore that he'd stood on the top of that castle keep, looking out at this very hill, pondering over the Firebringer War and if any of his old comrades ever wondered where he was; Galahad must've become Captain by now, Chris likely a squire. His name was probably written down in records, on monuments, and in a few dim memories as "the hero that covered the Zexen retreat", with students rolling their eyes in history classes that they had to learn some dusty old history like that. Without a body or proof of his death, the bookkeepers would've recorded him as "missing", an empty space in the manor. He wondered how Chris was doing with her training; hard enough without any family at home, harder still for a girl in a society where women didn't become warriors. Had Galahad remembered his promise to let Chris at least try?

Had Chris even cared to try, after he'd never come back?

"How long are you planning on having this little field trip?" Again he was startled back to the present, this time by Lucia, standing below the monolith looking up at them; the kids, gryphlet and all, were hiding behind his ankles. "It's getting dark." She looked amused; that was usually a good sign.

"I think we're about ready; I was just showing them the view." He jumped down, landing off and almost twisting his ankle, then turned around to help each of the kids in turn down. "Go on, you guys; back to the village with you. We'll catch up."

"Race you!", Aila yelled, and all four of them took off running.

"Are you alright, Jimba?"

"Mmm?"

"You were staring at Brass Castle with that distant look...it was like you'd become a ghost." She'd calmed out since she'd had Hugo, and sometimes he wasn't sure how much she knew or noticed. "Do you ever want to go back?"

He stared off west again, at Zexen. "Not really; they've probably all forgotten me anyway." He started walking down the hill, avoiding any further discussion.


	4. Chapter 4

_Even though I'm the sacrifice_

_You won't try for me, not now_

_Though I died to know you love me_

_I'm all alone_

_Isn't someone missing me?_

It had finally happened. Lucia had left him in charge of the village to go to a peace negotiation with the other Clan leaders and the Captain of the Knights; he'd sent his seal with Hugo to Vinay del Zexay, putting a last nail in the coffin of Wyatt Lightfellow's memory. Lucia had given him the same strange thoughtful look as he'd given the seal to her son, ensuring that the man he had been was dead now, even now that he might be able to travel back. Maybe Hugo and Lulu would drop some clues when they got back, in their inevitable rambles, about how the household was; maybe he could ask Joe directly, if they'd seen any sign of Chris, if it wouldn't remind the duck too much of his own lost family. Jimba Cheeva was the right hand of the Chief of Karaya, surrogate father to the children orphaned in the fighting, the old warrior and hunter who'd just "always been there"; he had a new life now, and didn't need to disturb old ghosts. He had his back to the door, fussing over the hanging curtain he'd made just before Lucia had become chief.

A messenger signaled that they were escorting a visitor for the chief, a Harmonian Southern Defense Force unit leader, then ducked out.

"Chief Lucia is at the negotiations; you'll have to-" he turned then, and saw the one-eyed ghost leaning against the door frame, his voice dropping away as his past came crashing back. "Dear gods."

"Lovely way to greet an old friend, Wyatt. It's been what - almost fifty years?" Geddoe smiled wryly and ever so slightly; he hadn't changed at all.

"I mean, it's good to see you, of course, but - why are you here?"

"Could say the same for you - I'd thought you'd been happy, settling in Vinay del Zexay, but I suppose it doesn't matter; any place must get old if you're there long enough." The issue of Wyatt's family was neatly avoided, if Geddoe had even heard. "I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I said this was a social call."

"As much as I'd like to hear that, I doubt you'd come all this way for something that frivolous, not with an SDF unit in tow." Wyatt walked to the center of the room and sat down on one of the low benches, gesturing Geddoe to one. "So what brings you out here?"

"Trouble. Not entirely sure what kind, but there's a bishop behind it, and I don't like the timing."

Wyatt raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Rushing Geddoe got one nowhere.

"There's a very large reward out for SDF Units, for anyone who can find the Flame Champion or any of the Firebringers. We're among the units registered for it."

"The gods love irony."

Geddoe nodded quietly; so he'd been hiding from Harmonia in plain sight all these years, in Caleria.

"You don't think they'd break the treaty, do you?" The fifty year old promise haunted him.

"I hope not, but this is Harmonia. Also, there's something else about this that bothers me."

Wyatt raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

"The Bishop that is hiring mercenaries....no one seems to know his name."

"Politics?" That was putting it lightly. If he was going nameless, he didn't want a paper trail; Harmonian politics were dangerous enough without intrigue.

Geddoe nodded thoughtfully. "By the way, the treaty with Zexen's not going to hold."

"Eh?" Wyatt started, trying to figure out where the sudden subject jump had come from, or why Geddoe was following the treaty.

"You heard yet, about Lord Zepon?" The Lizard Chieftain; Jimba had always gotten along with the old reptile, on the rare occasions they met. He shook his head.

"Mm. Must've made better time than we thought, if we beat the Lizards here.."

"What happened?" He was starting to shift impatiently; Geddoe's sense of timing was still inexplicable and unreadable, aged to incomprehensibility, and even after fifty years, he hadn't quite learned the old warrior's patience.

"Assassinated. Apparently by the Zexen Knights, but there's something....off. I can't quite say what yet; the tactics for the raid weren't typical Zexen tactics, and one of my Unit picked up on something he's still nattering over. He hasn't figured out enough to say anything yet besides 'footprints'." Geddoe closed his good eye, leaning his forehead on his folded hands; Wyatt was starting to feel cold, even with the hangings on the window keeping out any draft. Assassinated by the Zexen Knights....the Knights Lucia was meeting with, that he'd once led..... "The one leading the raid that served as the diversion, was the Captain of the Zexen Knights, if there wasn't some kind of trickery involved....if there was, it was a damn convincing forgery. We...were in Vinay del Zexay when she was named acting Captain, I think it's probably official now; she's a hero there." Geddoe rubbed the bridge of his nose uncomfortably, bushing the edge of his eyepatch. Just at the pronoun 'she' a rock formed in Jimba's stomach; women usually weren't allowed to be knights, not without special circumstances, and he only knew of one such case in the past few decades, though he prayed it was a different exception. "Chris Lightfellow." When Geddoe looked up, Wyatt was staring at him with the kind of dumbfounded, wounded look that usually accompanied a knife to the gut; he would've preferred that, really. What had his daughter grown into? "Wyatt...I'm sorry."

The door opened suddenly, to Queen and a Karayan messenger.

"Jimba? You need to see this, now.", the messenger urged, not even leaving the doorway. Jimba stood, bowed to Geddoe, and followed the messenger out, leaving Queen and Geddoe inside.

The messenger led him out to the edge of the sunset-dimming village, pointing off toward the hills coming down from the area of the negotiations; the flash of weapons and sparks of smoke from there were already visible, the negotiations had turned to a battle. "What do you think's going on?"

Lord Zepon was assassinated, not long ago, but it had to be before the negotiations - the Zexen Knights had fallen from what he'd once commanded. "It looks like...things went wrong." What did Chris remember of him, if at all? What was she thinking? "Do we have any warriors at the village, in case something goes wrong?"

"A few.. not enough to fend off an attack." Bloody Hell. If they'd pulled something like the ambush on Zepon...

There were shouts from another part of the village, a spark of flames and smoke going up.

The village was under attack by his daughter.

He grabbed the warrior's shoulders. "Go to the other warriors, get the younger, faster ones, start evacuating everyone; have them scatter, we'll meet up outside Duck Village, just make sure everyone gets out! I'll get the back gate and make sure it's safe, it looks like they're attacking from the front." If they weren't setting fires to draw attention and sending troops around back; he'd find out fast enough, it was more important to evacuate, to get out who they could. At least Hugo and Lulu weren't here...

\-----------------------------------------------------

_And if I bleed, I'll bleed,_

_Knowing you don't care_

_And if I sleep just to dream of you_

_And wake without you there,_

_Isn't something missing?_

He stood beside Lucia, looking across the hilltops at the windmills of Iksay Village; his poise showed nothing but grim resolve.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" It wasn't like him; she was the crazy vengeful bitch, Jimba Cheeva was the voice of reason that told her to calm down and think it over.

"I'm sure."

"These were your people once."

"Wyatt Lightfellow is dead." The last nail in his coffin hadn't been sending home his seal, it had been his own daughter burning and slaughtering the home that'd taken in Jimba Cheeva, after turning an attempt at peace into a bloody battle. If Zexen had fallen so far that even the Knights were resorting to that kind of deception, he wanted no part of it anymore.

And Iksay was close enough to Brass Castle that the Knights were sure to make an appearance; he had one last ghost of Wyatt's life to lay to rest, the Silver Maiden.

If Jimba had joined the voices calling for blood, then the world had gone mad enough that nothing was sacred anymore. Lucia nodded to Lord Dupa and sounded the charge.

The festival scattered into chaos; for all the orders to set themselves above the Zexen raid and not harm civilians, Jimba saw more than one Lizard or Karayan lashing out in vengeful rage rather than control, not discriminating targets. A few of the villagers took up farm tools, old rusted heirlooms, and stood up to fight; most were cut down quickly. He hung out of the main part of the battle, he didn't want to be any more a part of the attack on the village itself than he had to, there was just one person he was looking for.

There was one young black-haired man who fought with far more skill than any simple villager, with a well-kept sword, struggling to cross the village toward the crest of the hill; as two lizards stepped into his path, he howled, "CHRIS!", toward the hilltop.

One of the Zexen Knights. Chris was here, at the hilltop. Jimba took off running through the chaos, almost completely unhindered, the windmill's burning shadow guiding him.

There were two on the hilltop holding it, ringed in by Karayan and Lizard forces; Wyatt glimpsed one and it was all he needed - long silver hair flowing over a green jacket, sword held as if it'd been there all her life, pale eyes flashing.

"The Zexen captain is mine!", he yelled, and the other Grasslander warriors cleared a path for him; Chris glared over her swordhilt, some rattled panic betrayed by a shake in her wrist. She'd grown to be as beautiful as her mother, hair flashing in the firelight; yet any hint of fatherly pride was swiftly buried in the memory of the slaughter of Karaya. The other stepped up behind her, arm raised - blonde hair, a bit older, teal and grey that was no cut of Grasslands or Zexen - Harmonian. Chris raised a hand to the man, waving him back; he grimaced, glancing at Jimba, and backed off, hand on his wrist where there had to be a weapon hidden.

"Why are you doing this?!", she yelled over the roar of flames and battle.

How dare she - "You should know; you moved first." He'd lapsed into a feral, bloodthirsty snarl.

"This isn't - we had no choice!" She actually cringed back, flagging slightly.

"Then fight for your life, if you believe you did the right thing." He raised his blade, glaring coldly.

She pulled the slight shake into control fast as he struck, parrying and dancing back to compensate so that he wouldn't shove her off balance. She was fighting warily, defensively, testing out his responses; she'd been taught to fight without armor as well as with, something not all of the knights bothered with. She was strong, and fast; he was surprised at how straightforward a fighter she was. There was almost nothing of dirty raw-survival tricks and deceptions, she was fighting cleaner than he was, and every time he drew blood or his blade flashed a little too close, the Harmonian cringed and his wrist twitched under the weapon; Jimba caught her giving him a couple warning glares when he started to move as if taking aim. Was this the same commander that had assassinated Zepon and burned Karaya?

She readied for a strike, her hands on the hilt slightly too high above her chest, an opening; he moved, blade aimed straight for her chest. A flicker of a wince passed as she recognized what was happening, his blade passing under the pommel. At the last moment, he relented, pulling the blow up to twist her sword out of her hands instead of killing her outright, tossing the sword to the ground beside her; she fell back, off balance, landing graceless on her rump with his blade leveled at her face. The Harmonian raised to fire - "Nash!", she snapped, glaring at him to stand down. She wasn't accepting help on a duel even when it was going badly.

"Take up your sword.", he growled. "I won't have you die without honor."

She rose to a crouch, cautiously taking the sword back up, then to her feet, stepping back to a ready stance; the necessity of the moment had banished the rattled wobble from her movements completely now. She took the initiative this time, a fast crosswise strike parried away, riposting out of it into a thrust at his side; he sidestepped, but the point of her blade drew blood along his ribs. She was already pulling back for an upward slash; he backpedaled out of the way.

Then instead of the upward slash, she dodged back almost behind him, catching his right arm with a solid blow straight to the bone, then pressed the attack; turning to parry threw him off balance, weaving back out of the way of the next blow put him on the ground. She had her sword at his throat, standing on the other side so that there wasn't anywhere for him to go.

He had to turn his head to see her face, holding still; she wasn't making any move to finish the fight, but wasn't letting him up either. She was tensed, glaring, and there wasn't a single glimmer of recognition here or anywhere else in the fight that he'd been able to see. He was briefly tempted to ask if she knew who he was, if she remembered.

"Why did you single me out? How did you know I was the Captain of the Knights?"

"Not too hard to figure out, Chris." Pale blue eyes, without a trace of familiarity. She didn't remember.

He saw Lucia storming up the road out of the corner of his eye, and started to raise a hand to wave her back -

But the whip had already cracked out and wrapped around a drawn sword held up by Nash, who'd moved almost between him and Chris; there was an odd glimmer of something along the sword blade that wasn't normal, and the Harmonian seemed to be holding utter focus as he pulled the blade back, cutting neatly through Lucia's whip, resheathing the sword with one hand.

"Sorry, just collecting my friend here." Nash put an arm around Chris's waist and took off at a fast jog, lifting her off her feet and dragging the surprised knight toward the side of the hill that dropped off into the river.

"What-are-you-doing-unhand-me-" Wyatt stood and gave chase; the Harmonian whipped around at the drop-off, arm raised, and for a brief moment it looked like he was using Chris as a shield; then a dart glanced off Jimba's collarbone ineffectually - in stepping behind Chris, he'd actually stepped straight off the drop-off, dragging her over with him so that he'd hit the water first. "Have-you-gone-maaAAIIIEEE!!" Chris's shriek was cut off by a large splash in the river below; Jimba reached the edge, staring over. His balance wavered, and he only had enough time to recognize that the dart had been drugged and pull away from the edge before he passed out.

His daughter had forgotten him.


	5. I'd Die to Know You Love Me

_Even though I'm the sacrifice_

_You won't try for me, not now_

_Though I'd die to know you love me_

_I'm all alone_

_Isn't something missing?_

_Isn't someone missing me?_

He'd stayed around the edges of the ragged retreat from Chisha, wobbling between being afraid that Chris would recognize him, and a sort of scraped-out-inside feeling at the realization that she didn't. The hollow feeling somehow got worse with the realization that the Knights hadn't been responsible for Zepon's murder, that both Zexen and Grasslands had been played for fools; he'd ended up watching several times as Borus, the one who'd lost control in Karaya, spent almost more time in the Karayan camp than the Zexen running errands for the Karayan commanders, mutely enduring whatever abuse or scorn the Karayan warriors had for him. Percival had taken to drinking with the Lizard Clan, extending an olive branch in spite of what'd happened at Iksay. They had ridden into Chisha unbidden and likely in defiance of the Council, on hearing that Harmonia was attacking again, that Chris was alone helping defend a doomed village that wasn't even Zexen. All sides had made mistakes, but he found himself proud of her and the Knights in spite of himself. Chris had followed through on her childhood wish to become a Knight, and done so with honor. He tried to think of something to say to her sometimes, and found nothing.

Lucia had barely spoken to him, the quiet needling look speaking volumes so she didn't have to. Hugo had hovered nearby a couple times, asking oblique questions about the seal he'd sent and his old stories, with a kind of suspicious look, dropping it after being blown off a few times. He'd taken to avoiding Nash, after hearing that the Harmonian was traveling with Chris to help her find her father; he wasn't sure what to do yet, being in the same camp with her, and didn't want to be pushed into a confrontation when he still didn't know what to say.

Then one evening he looked up from his campfire on the side of the army's camp to see Geddoe in the firelight, standing a few feet away.

"Chris…that's your daughter, right?"

He nodded quietly.

"She's looking for you."

Another numb nod.

"Are you going to talk to her?"

"….Maybe. There's…things I need to do first."

Geddoe was silent, watching him stare into the firelight for a few minutes. "Your call." The old mercenary walked away, leaving him to his camp.

He couldn't talk to Chris as Jimba Cheeva, and he had a promise to keep anyway; there was a new Flame champion, the Firebringers were being patched together out of the Clans and the Zexen Knights. Wyatt Lightfellow was being resurrected whether he liked it or not, and if he was going to do it, he was going to make it complete; unseal the True Water Rune and take his old place in the Firebringers, where he'd actually be able to talk to her and feel slightly taller than two inches.

Would she be angry, that he'd abandoned her for so long? She had every right; he overheard enough, here and there, how she'd driven herself through training following his shadow, the rumors she'd had to deal with, how she'd waited for years before realizing that "Missing" was another word for "Dead" with the bookkeepers…

How she'd dropped everything to go with Nash following the rumor that he might be alive, after they'd almost killed each other in Iksay.

What image did she have, of her father? Was it even possible for him to live up to it anymore, or had "Father" faded into some sort of childhood faerie tale?

He left the army when they came close to the gates of Brass Castle; he didn't want to go back like this. He had too many memories there that Jimba Cheeva was not a part of; he slipped off in the middle of the night, skulking through the woods to avoid Firebringers and Harmonians alike. When he'd come to the edge of the trees northward, he started across the plains, watching for any signs of movement or being followed.

He had to flatten against the canyon wall leading into the Great Hollow to avoid being noticed by the Lizard guards, breaking into a cautious run when he made it to the overgrown side trail to the underground highway. He didn't need light to navigate the tunnel; even dormant the Water Rune remembered the way. The lines on the door to the shrine shimmered softly at his approach; Alma Kinan had released the seal. The doors swung open with a deep grinding sound at his touch.

He sleepwalked the tangled roads to the shrine, letting the memories of the Rune guide his steps; it wanted to be freed again, and when he found himself at the central shrine, he had to take pause. It was as if the Runes determined the path more than the bearers - Hugo was already going from a Karayan teenager to the Flame Champion, and getting the beginnings of the ageless, drifting look in his eyes. Geddoe was almost characterized by it, drifting from battlefield to battlefield like a human stormcloud. Would they all someday be like Geddoe, distanced from humanity, past and any personal ties draining away like sand, living ghosts led by their Runes?

A simple silver orb the size of his fist drifted, waiting. He walked to it, raising his right hand; blue light rippled around it, and the True Rune sigil reformed glowing on the back of his hand. The old power flowed back into him with pins and needles, as if his entire body was a limb fallen asleep regaining circulation; the memories and instincts reawakening, the feel of the shrine as a web of blue light...

The lighter blue of the True Wind Rune and the stark metal points of the Eightfold behind him, with two dimmer auras accompanying.

He looked over his shoulder away from the Rune; the masked Bishop was barely five feet behind him, inside the sanctum, Yuber standing silently beside him with blades out, the light of the Rune reflected in blue and red eyes. Albert had kept back, by the doorway, close enough to be included if they needed to throw up a shield spell but back enough to be out of the way of a fight; the illusion-caller was in the footsteps of the two Runebearers.

"What do you want?!" He didn't need to ask, he'd heard about the confrontation in the Fire Shrine.

"We're here for the Water Rune. It'll be much easier if you give it up peacefully."

"Never.", he snarled, allowing the Rune and the Shrine to lash out, waves of ice forming and crashing against a wind-shield. The Rune seemed to have merged just enough - he let go of the silver sphere, drawing his blade, trying to focus enough to fight while the Rune was still stretching back to its full strength.

As soon as he passed the threshold of the jagged ice, snow, and hail that was filling the sanctum, he hit two slender swords that blocked his blade like a wall. Half step back out of the locked blades, and the Eightfold was on his left side away from his blade, one sword trailing red from his ribcage. The howl of ice and hail changed pitch, a brief shrieking chime, and spread further around the sanctum. Turn towards that to try and attack, and he was impaled from behind. The wind shield was pushed inward, as the rime outside the sanctum crept further, growing more blades. There were two glimmers at the entrance of the shrine, Fire forcing through the outpouring of Water, it and Lightning sparking in answer. It was becoming harder and harder to fight Yuber and keep the Water Rune from screaming out of control; he remembered the conflagration that had ended the last war, most of the Amur Plain would die in a holocaust of ice if he lost his grasp on the Rune.

The metal sparks of the Eightfold reinforced Luc's barrier as Albert edged away from the circle of ice, then turned the rest of their focus on him.


	6. You Say That Things Change

_You say "I wanted you to be proud of me"_

_I always wanted that myself_

_When you gonna make up your mind?_

_When you gonna love you as much as I do?_

_When you gonna make up your mind?_

_All the white horses have gone ahead_

_To tell you that I always want you near_

_You say that "Things change, my dear" - Winter, Tori Amos_

When they finally reached the inner sanctum of the Shrine, Chris had finally found that state somewhere beyond exhaustion where it didn't occur to her anymore that she'd just taken a long sprint and a battle in full plate mail, keeping up with a bunch of people in light or no armor. Her breath hung in the air in front of her, and soon enough the cold would catch up through the exercise. She'd fallen back in behind, half being pulled by Nash; Geddoe and Hugo had led the way through the shrine, the two Runebearers acting in a desperate resolve, as if there was something they heard that nobody else could quite make out. Lucia, Fubar, and Queen hadn't seemed to have had any trouble keeping up, and it rather stung that the only one that looked as worn out as she felt was Caesar. She wasn't sure why they'd brought her, but when word had arrived that Jimba had gone missing, last seen heading into the Amur Plains, Nash had insisted on her coming, more grim than she was used to seeing him, and most of the others had backed him up. Some subconscious part of her saw the pattern of what they all knew that they weren't telling her, a part she wasn't quite ready to understand yet.

"Jimba!" Hugo's panicked shout, and the sound of everyone else readying weapons, snapped her out of the reverie she hadn't realized she'd fallen into.

She drew her sword, letting Caesar edge back past her to stay behind. The inner sanctum was almost impossible to identify as something manmade, the walls thick coated with jagged ice crystals; a snow-laden wind howled through the chamber, blue and white light cast from a silver orb in the center of the room that had formed a shell of shimmering blue, taking up most of the vaulted ceiling. The older Karayan was on the ground, the snow and ice around him red, with Yuber standing over him, both blades out and bloodied; the girl they'd just fought was ignoring her own wounds, helping the nameless Bishop to his feet, the cracked shards of his mask in the snow in front of him, bladed shards of ice sticking in the snow where they'd just broken through his defenses. Albert was just behind the two of them, looking more and more uncomfortable with each second.

"The Water Rune's going to go completely out of control soon." Yuber shook the blood off his blades with a snap of each wrist, making the comment to the Bishop as if he were speaking of a child forgetting to close the window after dark. Something silent went between the Bishop and Sarah as Hugo and Fubar dove at them, hitting only snow where they'd been standing as all four of them disappeared in spirals of light.

Lucia was already at Jimba's side, gently holding him out of the snow as much as she could; Geddoe knelt at his other side, helping support his shoulder. Hugo stood slowly, still holding his blade, and walked over to stand at Jimba's feet, Fubar whining softly and leaning his feathered head on the boy's shoulder. Queen and Caesar hung back by the door, watching the entrance in silence, not looking at the others. Nash stood right next to her shoulder, something unreadable and bitter in his expression, eyes unfocused on the scene.

"Chris…" Jimba lifted his right hand weakly, waving her closer. The part of the back of her mind that caught the hints so far seemed to want to shatter everything as she walked forward, confused. "The Rune…would you take it…I can't…can't hold it back much longer…" He was torn to shreds, holding up his right hand to her, the blue light cracking around it with bits of frozen dust, giving her a look of...she wasn't sure what to make of that expression, there was pain, and some kind of utmost trust. No one else would look up to meet her eyes.

She reached down, taking his hand, and the True Water Rune hit her like a tidal wave. The waking world fell away into a colored web, the flaring, roiling blue knot of the shrine, the lines of power leading off from it; she could feel the Lightning Rune cracking beside her in subdued grief, the Fire Rune howling to nothing as Hugo turned and walked a few steps away to plant his blade in one of the ice spires, Lucia's smaller smoulder, an upright whispering behind her that was Nash with two serpents coiled in obedient sleep, something clever-scrabbling-rat that had to be Caesar, loyal-wild-jessed-hawk of Queen holding sympathy, silver wind and wings of light and pride that was Fubar. The Rune seemed to drag perspective upward, to a larger web of light and shadows, as the ties and bindings that connected the True Rune each to each other were briefly revealed in a flicker, a rush of sigils, powers, faces and souls too quick for her to pick details out of; then it showed her the past.

Ages rushed by with the tides, the fates of nations and civilizations ebbing and flowing. Glimpses of past bearers, of events past bearers had been involved in, flooded through, too much for her to absorb more than a flicker of images and voices.

As it started to settle down bonding to her, it started showing her bits of the previous bearer, the soul it'd just released its hold on. The fight at the burning windmill. Avoiding her on the long retreat from Chisha. Hugo, Lulu, Aila, and Fubar as kids. To the past, watching the firestorm of the out-of-control Fire Rune, standing beside Geddoe.

Leading the Knights into battle against the Lizard Clan. Kneeling, bloodied, before the Karaya Chief.

Walking out of his daughter's room in the middle of the night. "Forgive me, Chris…"

She snapped out of it with a start; the sphere of blue and silver light was gone, the wind and hail had stopped, and the ice and snow were slowly melting away. It had bothered her for so long, that she didn't even remember her father's face; she'd met him and hadn't even known him. She dropped to her knees next to Geddoe; he was dead, the Rune had been the only thing keeping him alive after Yuber was through shredding him, he'd passed the Rune on to her knowing that he wouldn't survive.

Because if he didn't pass it on, even though he would've lived, everyone in the area except perhaps Geddoe and Hugo would've died.

"You…you were…"

She tried to reach through the Rune, to find something in its magic to save him; there was nothing - it had a great deal of power with healing, but it couldn't bring back a Runebearer who'd given up their life to pass the Rune on.

After Nash had told her that her father was still alive, she'd spent hours awake at night wondering why he'd left; why he hadn't come back, or sent any message to let her know he was alive, and some nights, she'd found herself almost hating him, for walking away and leaving like that. She tried to find that again, now that he'd left her again - if not for the Rune going haywire, he would've died and she never would've known her father'd fallen here. She couldn't do it; the Rune had given her everything he'd meant, everything he'd done.

And she couldn't find any anger knowing that this was the second time he'd died for her.

Nash squeezed her shoulder as it shook, and she realized she was crying, tears disturbing the blood on her father's clothing. Out of the edge of her vision, she saw Geddoe's good eye close as he turned away; He'd known, but apparently hadn't wanted to tell her without Wyatt's permission. So had Hugo and Lucia; Lucia had known from the start, Hugo had figured it out from his stories. When she looked up, even though Nash's hand was still on her shoulder, he looked away; he must've caught on at some point.

"We should get him out of here - get him a proper burial." Geddoe started to gather the body, then Fubar nudged Lucia out of the way, slipping under insistently.

They let the gryphon carry him, Geddoe and Lucia taking the lead; Chris walked just behind Fubar. Hugo was beside her, eyes on the ground; Wyatt - Jimba - had looked after the boy as if he'd been Jimba's own son - he might as well be her brother. The others were behind them, quiet as pallbearers on a funeral procession.

She had fought so hard to become a Knight like him, to be something he'd be proud of; she knew now, with his memories of watching her fight at the battle of Chisha, that she'd done well in his eyes. Her father was proud of her. But there was something else missing. She'd looked up to him all her life; considered him a hero every bit as much as any of the others that'd used that word for him, and he had never realized it.

She looked up from watching Fubar's tail swing as the gryphon walked carefully ahead, to her father carried on the gryphon's back, with one quiet whisper.

"I was proud…you really were a hero."


End file.
